Weight Loss

11 Tiny Tweaks to Help You Lose Weight

Trying to lose weight can become quite overwhelming sometimes. Help yourself shed the pounds by integrating small secret weight loss “hacks” into your daily life.

1. Don’t Multitask While Eating

When we think of fullness, we often think the only way to feel that we’re full is to eat to the point until our tummies are so bloated it’s actually uncomfortable to breathe. Our bodies are actually always sending signals to our brains via the nervous and endocrine systems when we are full. The trouble with multitasking is that it renders you unable to focus on just one thing and when you’re scrolling through Instagram or watching TV while you’re eating you could miss your satiety signals and keep eating long after your satiety signals have been telling your brain you’re full.

2. Always Leave At Least One Mouthful On The Plate

Okay, it’s a cheap cop out, but a lot of times that last bite might still be worth 50 calories or more, and we know how easily that adds up. Besides, the more you do this, the more you realize how little you actually need and how much you’ve actually been overeating. It will also help you feel good about yourself, knowing you had enough willpower to just say no to that last bite.

3. Walk For Two Minutes Every Hour

We all know how sitting too much affects our waistlines and how it adversely affects our health. Unless you have a job that requires you to be out and about, you, like the rest of us, will be glued to your desk the whole day. Get your blood flowing by walking around for two minutes every hour or so. This time is short enough so your boss won’t miss you, and walking for two minutes is not going to require a change of clothes but it does burn 400 calories a week.

If you don’t change anything else, even this 2-minute walk could help you lose a pound in 2 months, 6 in a year and 12 pounds in two years.

4. Stop Watching Food Network

We know, it broke our hearts too. But a study published in the medical journal Appetite reviewed a survey conducted on 500 female participants between the ages of 20 to 35 – researchers found that women who watched food networks and cooked the TV recipes from scratch were, on average, 10 pounds heavier than their counterparts who cooked from scratch using recipes from family, friends and cookbooks.

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5. Make Your Veggies The New Fast-Food

One of the reasons why we eat so much junk is because it’s so convenient. You just grab it, eat it on the go and you’re done. Make healthy food your new fast food by prepping it ahead of time and placing it in conspicuous places in your refrigerator, preferably leaving it in eye-level. Take pre-cut and pre-washed vegetables, put them in a container with a little bit of hummus and put them where you can see them easily.

6. Eat Your Veggies First

Veggies can do no wrong, really. Experts may disagree on fruit, protein and grains but they never ever argue about the virtues of vegetables. They’re rich in fiber, highly nutritious and satisfying, and eating them before any of the other food groups hit your lips can be a great way to eat less food. You will be dropping those pounds before you know it.

7. Drink More Green Tea

A small scale research tested the effects of decaf green tea on 14 men and their weight loss process. The study found that drinking 6-7 cups daily (or just taking a supplement if you don’t like tea that much) has been found to increase fat oxidation rates by 25%. The volunteers who drank green tea lost an average of 1.63% more body fat percentage compared to those who had the placebo.

8. Stay Away From Skimmed Milk

A huge study from Tufts University followed 120,000 men and women over the course of 18 years to see if eating dairy had any impact on weight. The results were pretty surprising. We’ve been taught all this time that low fat is always better, but it apparently isn’t the case with milk.

It turns out, while the consumption of dairy had little or nothing to do with weight gain, drinking low fat milk or dairy made people eat more carbs.

9. Eat More Protein

A study from the University of Washington has found that doubling up your consumption of protein can help you eat less without feeling hungry. Protein may actually make your cells more sensitive to leptin, a hormone that signals your brain that you are full.

10. Drink At Least 3 Liters Of Water Every Day

Drinking this much water will obviously keep you full enough to avoid mindless eating. Scientists are also now finding out that a lot of the cravings we get can actually be traced back to our cells wanting more water. So curb your cravings by drinking as much water as you can.

11. Just Give Up Soda Already

If you haven’t already heard, drinking soda is probably the most useless thing ever. It doesn’t have any nutritional value, it makes you thirstier afterwards and because it’s so unnaturally sweet it just makes you crave even more junk food. Just cut out the soda already, even if it’s diet soda.

Disclamer: the information on this site is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained on or available through this web site is for general information purposes only.